Kids' Pole Dancing Classes Get Taiwanese Animation Treatment

Taipei-based Next Media Animation, the company behind satirical depictions of hockey violence and U.S. President Barack Obama's admitted smoking habits, has turned its attention to a Vancouver Island school that is offering pole dancing classes for kids.

The video shows young girls in skimpy clothing dancing around poles being watched by men with images of Internet meme Pedobear replacing their heads.

The video goes on to point out that Russia already offers pole-dancing competitions for girls as young as seven years old. It hammers home this point by showing scantily-dressed young girls dancing around a cross at St. Peter's Basilica in Moscow.

Kristy Craig, the owner of Twisted Grip, the school that's offering the "Little Spinners" lessons, tells QMI Agency she's shocked that the classes have received so much negative attention.

"It’s nothing new," she said. "“People need to really look into it before jumping to any conclusions about what I’m offering."

Taiwan isn't the only place that scorning the classes. Viewers writing into Florida's WFTX-TV expressed strong disapproval of the classes.

"Ridiculous! No one under 16 should be doing this, they are going to get the wrong idea and the outcome is going to be worse, nothing good can come from this," said one.

While the school may be finding detractors abroad, it's also finding defenders at home. Carolyne Braid, a pole dancing instructor in Winnipeg, tells the Winnipeg Sun that there's nothing wrong with teaching pole dancing to kids.

"It is treated as any other piece of fitness equipment we have in the house," she wrote in a blog post. "My daughter has tremendous upper-body strength and my son enjoys showing off feats of strength to friends.”